Bill Maughn tells the Mays story

Marsha
Bill Maughn
tells the
Mays story
BY BENNY MARSHALL, News sports editor
It is not surprising that Bill Maughn still feels
slightly ill when he thinks about it 15 years after it
all happened, and 15 years from now this will not have
changed.
Bill Maughn is the guy who struck it richest on the
Klondike and didn't get to file the claim; he found the pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow and they wouldn't let him pick it
up, slew the dragon to win the princess and found out she had
run off with the king's boy next door.
Bill Maughn had pennants in his hand, in bunches like
bananas, thrusting them at the Boston Braves who would
i™™,~,„ »*ji »-«-> -^ next yeai.; Atlanta's Braves.
become Milwaukee's
The Braves wouldn't have them, could have, but spurned
them. They made one of the most monumentally wrong guesses
in baseball history.
What this is all about is Willie Mays, who went from
Fairfield to baseball's big leagues, and there are people who
have seen them from Ruth to Mantle, from Greenberg to
Musial to Williams, who are convinced that here is the gseatest
of them all.
Maughn, who works the Southeast for the Los Angeles
Angels now, hunting ballplayers, is the man who saw Willie
first, who watched him grow the great ability and had to turn
away when Mays, the boy, came and said, "Please sign me."
The Braves had told their scout Maughn, "Nothing doing."
—The beginning
YOU GO BACK 16 years for the start of the Mays-Maughn
story, but it was coming out like last week as the sharp
gent'"—nn from Cullman who came that close went, remembering vday before the night's rainout at Rickwood . . .
ad been to Tuscaloosa," Maughn said, "And this would
have been, let me see, 1949. I stopped by Rickwood and the
Black Barons were playing Dallas. I just walked in with no
lineups or anything, not expecting anything, really.
"The leftfielder for Birmingham couldn't throw. Dallas had
runners on first and third and it was the second inning. The
next hitter hit the ball off the scoreboard, and the leftfielder
got it. The center fielder came running over yelling, 'Give it to
me, give it to me!' and be-doggoned if the leftfielder didn't
shovel pass it to him like a football player and the
centerfielder threw out the runner trying to go from first to
third.
"Four innings later, he goes to right-center and he has to
turn and throw and he gets another one by eight feet, trying to
go from first to third.
—That's Willie
"I DIDN'T know anything or anyone there. I asked one of
the ticket-sellers who owned the club and he introduced me to
Tom Hayes. He told me the center-fielder's name. It was Willie
Mays, and he showed me the calling card of Harry Jenkins, the
Boston farm director, who had seen Willie previously, and he
had talked to Mr. (Lou) Perini (Braves owner) about this
fellow who looked like he could be great.
"Hayes said he would get in touch with Jenkins when
Willie was eligible to sign, and that would be the next year
when he got out of Fairfield Industrial High School. He was 17,
1 suppose, and just playing in the home games. They wouldn't
let him go on the road.
"I followed him for 16 games the rest of that year and the
spring of the next, and all he ever thought about or talked,
about was playing ball. He was pleading with me to sign him
by then, but the Braves had just paid $150,000 for Sam Jethroe,
their first Negro player, and they moved slower back then, as
you know.
"They weren't sure about Willie, so they sent a laison man
down from the front office to look at him.
r now, he passed
—Tip to the Giants
"A FEW WEEKS later I was in Atlanta and tipped off
Eddie Montague, who sccouted for the Giants, about Willie. Eddie was coming to Birmingham to look at Alonzo Perry, who
played first base for the Black Barons. 'Listen,' I told him.
'You forget about Perry. Willie Mays is the one you want.'
"So Montague and another Giant scout, Bill Harris, came
to Birmingham and they saw Willie and they decided to take
him. They didn't have to wait.
"What did he cost? They paid Hayes, the owner, $10,000,
and they gave Willie $4,000. Those are the exact figures. I
would have been more generous," Maughn laughed to Spud
Chandler, sitting in at the Bankhead coffee hour. I was going to
sign him for $6,000.
"He went to Trenton that year, and he was at Minneapolis
for awhile in 1951, then they took him up. He was 0 for 26 at the
start, but Leo Durocher stuck with him and played him, and
the rest is in the book."
Last night, Willie Mays of the Giants hit the 476th home
run of his major league career, breaking a tie with Stan Musial
for second place behind Mel Ott in the all-time National League
homer standings. He looks like a cinch to beat Ott's 511.
covers all of it.
—Saw them all
MAUGHN HAS scouted for Boston, the Giants, the
Cardinals, Milwaukee and since 1961, the Angels after a
minor-league umpiring career which World War II cut short. A
native of Youngstown who moved to Cullman after he married
a Cullman girl in 1934, Bill was close to big league baseball as
a fan and as a concessiouns man at Cleveland and at Chicago
for years.
"I saw Ruth in his heyday,'' Maughn said. "I saw Gehrig,
Musial, Williams, Greenberg, all of them. Mays does all the
things you have to do better than any of them. He'll be there
for awhile, too, four or five years more, maybe longer...
"I used to make out his income tax for him before it got
too high for me, but I haven't seen him since 1959. For awhile,
1 had a path made from Cullman to his aunt's house in
Fairfield, and not another scout was following him. Not one.
I'd stand on the roof at Rickwood and watch him with Eddie
Glennon and I knew this guy was mine.
"He would have been, too, and don't you think he'd have
meant the difference in a pennant in 1956 when the Braves lost
"I
BILL MAUGHN
. . . He saw him first
WILLIE MAYS
. . . From Fairfield, up
by one game and in 1959 when we tied. What an outfield they'd
still have with Mays in it and Henry Aaron, too.
"He wanted to sign with me. 'Mr. Maughn,' he'd say, 'Why
don't you go ahead and sign me,' and I'd have to say, 'Not
—He won't forget
NOT VET became, finally, not at all, and it is a genuine I
sadness in the baseball life of Bill Maughn. He can laugh about I
the Giant scout who suddenly became very wise after Maj
became very big and forgot completely who it was wr
mentioned the name to him first, but he won't forget that he 1
needn't have been telling anybody except the Braves. '
"In fairness to that fellow who came down here and turned I
him down," Maughn said, "he saw Willie only once and it was a
double-header and Willie was up eight times and didn't get a '
hit. He said he couldn't stay and check him again. He had to go
to Texas, to forget about it."
It was one of the most expensive trips to Texas
representative of any baseball team ever took.
Thus, pupils, is the course of the history of men and games I
changed. The outfielder who cost the Giants $14,000 has made I
millions for them, and still does. He could have done the same I
at Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta. '
Maughn sighed as he reached for the coffee check and I
went toward the night's work at Rickwood. He found the I
treasure. Someone else took it to the bank. He had the key t~
Fort Knox. They changed the lock.

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Marsha
Bill Maughn
tells the
Mays story
BY BENNY MARSHALL, News sports editor
It is not surprising that Bill Maughn still feels
slightly ill when he thinks about it 15 years after it
all happened, and 15 years from now this will not have
changed.
Bill Maughn is the guy who struck it richest on the
Klondike and didn't get to file the claim; he found the pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow and they wouldn't let him pick it
up, slew the dragon to win the princess and found out she had
run off with the king's boy next door.
Bill Maughn had pennants in his hand, in bunches like
bananas, thrusting them at the Boston Braves who would
i™™,~,„ »*ji »-«-> -^ next yeai.; Atlanta's Braves.
become Milwaukee's
The Braves wouldn't have them, could have, but spurned
them. They made one of the most monumentally wrong guesses
in baseball history.
What this is all about is Willie Mays, who went from
Fairfield to baseball's big leagues, and there are people who
have seen them from Ruth to Mantle, from Greenberg to
Musial to Williams, who are convinced that here is the gseatest
of them all.
Maughn, who works the Southeast for the Los Angeles
Angels now, hunting ballplayers, is the man who saw Willie
first, who watched him grow the great ability and had to turn
away when Mays, the boy, came and said, "Please sign me."
The Braves had told their scout Maughn, "Nothing doing."
—The beginning
YOU GO BACK 16 years for the start of the Mays-Maughn
story, but it was coming out like last week as the sharp
gent'"—nn from Cullman who came that close went, remembering vday before the night's rainout at Rickwood . . .
ad been to Tuscaloosa," Maughn said, "And this would
have been, let me see, 1949. I stopped by Rickwood and the
Black Barons were playing Dallas. I just walked in with no
lineups or anything, not expecting anything, really.
"The leftfielder for Birmingham couldn't throw. Dallas had
runners on first and third and it was the second inning. The
next hitter hit the ball off the scoreboard, and the leftfielder
got it. The center fielder came running over yelling, 'Give it to
me, give it to me!' and be-doggoned if the leftfielder didn't
shovel pass it to him like a football player and the
centerfielder threw out the runner trying to go from first to
third.
"Four innings later, he goes to right-center and he has to
turn and throw and he gets another one by eight feet, trying to
go from first to third.
—That's Willie
"I DIDN'T know anything or anyone there. I asked one of
the ticket-sellers who owned the club and he introduced me to
Tom Hayes. He told me the center-fielder's name. It was Willie
Mays, and he showed me the calling card of Harry Jenkins, the
Boston farm director, who had seen Willie previously, and he
had talked to Mr. (Lou) Perini (Braves owner) about this
fellow who looked like he could be great.
"Hayes said he would get in touch with Jenkins when
Willie was eligible to sign, and that would be the next year
when he got out of Fairfield Industrial High School. He was 17,
1 suppose, and just playing in the home games. They wouldn't
let him go on the road.
"I followed him for 16 games the rest of that year and the
spring of the next, and all he ever thought about or talked,
about was playing ball. He was pleading with me to sign him
by then, but the Braves had just paid $150,000 for Sam Jethroe,
their first Negro player, and they moved slower back then, as
you know.
"They weren't sure about Willie, so they sent a laison man
down from the front office to look at him.
r now, he passed
—Tip to the Giants
"A FEW WEEKS later I was in Atlanta and tipped off
Eddie Montague, who sccouted for the Giants, about Willie. Eddie was coming to Birmingham to look at Alonzo Perry, who
played first base for the Black Barons. 'Listen,' I told him.
'You forget about Perry. Willie Mays is the one you want.'
"So Montague and another Giant scout, Bill Harris, came
to Birmingham and they saw Willie and they decided to take
him. They didn't have to wait.
"What did he cost? They paid Hayes, the owner, $10,000,
and they gave Willie $4,000. Those are the exact figures. I
would have been more generous," Maughn laughed to Spud
Chandler, sitting in at the Bankhead coffee hour. I was going to
sign him for $6,000.
"He went to Trenton that year, and he was at Minneapolis
for awhile in 1951, then they took him up. He was 0 for 26 at the
start, but Leo Durocher stuck with him and played him, and
the rest is in the book."
Last night, Willie Mays of the Giants hit the 476th home
run of his major league career, breaking a tie with Stan Musial
for second place behind Mel Ott in the all-time National League
homer standings. He looks like a cinch to beat Ott's 511.
covers all of it.
—Saw them all
MAUGHN HAS scouted for Boston, the Giants, the
Cardinals, Milwaukee and since 1961, the Angels after a
minor-league umpiring career which World War II cut short. A
native of Youngstown who moved to Cullman after he married
a Cullman girl in 1934, Bill was close to big league baseball as
a fan and as a concessiouns man at Cleveland and at Chicago
for years.
"I saw Ruth in his heyday,'' Maughn said. "I saw Gehrig,
Musial, Williams, Greenberg, all of them. Mays does all the
things you have to do better than any of them. He'll be there
for awhile, too, four or five years more, maybe longer...
"I used to make out his income tax for him before it got
too high for me, but I haven't seen him since 1959. For awhile,
1 had a path made from Cullman to his aunt's house in
Fairfield, and not another scout was following him. Not one.
I'd stand on the roof at Rickwood and watch him with Eddie
Glennon and I knew this guy was mine.
"He would have been, too, and don't you think he'd have
meant the difference in a pennant in 1956 when the Braves lost
"I
BILL MAUGHN
. . . He saw him first
WILLIE MAYS
. . . From Fairfield, up
by one game and in 1959 when we tied. What an outfield they'd
still have with Mays in it and Henry Aaron, too.
"He wanted to sign with me. 'Mr. Maughn,' he'd say, 'Why
don't you go ahead and sign me,' and I'd have to say, 'Not
—He won't forget
NOT VET became, finally, not at all, and it is a genuine I
sadness in the baseball life of Bill Maughn. He can laugh about I
the Giant scout who suddenly became very wise after Maj
became very big and forgot completely who it was wr
mentioned the name to him first, but he won't forget that he 1
needn't have been telling anybody except the Braves. '
"In fairness to that fellow who came down here and turned I
him down," Maughn said, "he saw Willie only once and it was a
double-header and Willie was up eight times and didn't get a '
hit. He said he couldn't stay and check him again. He had to go
to Texas, to forget about it."
It was one of the most expensive trips to Texas
representative of any baseball team ever took.
Thus, pupils, is the course of the history of men and games I
changed. The outfielder who cost the Giants $14,000 has made I
millions for them, and still does. He could have done the same I
at Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta. '
Maughn sighed as he reached for the coffee check and I
went toward the night's work at Rickwood. He found the I
treasure. Someone else took it to the bank. He had the key t~
Fort Knox. They changed the lock.